The Microfame Game

When you become famous to a small group of people, they think they know enough to gossip about you.

Of course you need to control this conversation, but you can't possibly be everywhere to manage it, so a close circle of friends becomes absolutely necessary. From anonymous blog comments to frothy bar conversations, confidantes are needed to tout your reputation at every opportunity.

You need a posse.

The most important members of your posse will be creators, pundits, and scenesters themselves. Which brings us to Cory Kennedy, the jailbait patron saint of L.A.'s dirty-fashion scene.

Team Cory started to form when the 16-year-old debutante became the intern/girlfriend of Cobrasnake, a party photographer and grungy hipster who makes American Apparel look like Disney.

Cobrasnake's party blog grew in popularity every time a photo of Cory appeared. To feed the monster, Cory started her own blog. High-profile L.A. clubs began paying Cory $100 to show up with a retinue of friends, mostly culled from her MySpace Top 8. By this point she had become the hero of an entire subculture of “scenequeens” who kept her name alive by mimicking her style, chatting about her on LiveJournal and Buzznet, and creating anendlessstreamofvideomontagesofher.

Microfame is an ecosystem, a collection of fans who contribute and invest themselves in the brand called you. The best current example of this esprit de corps in action is the diaspora of former Gawker editors who have picked up microblogging. Alex, Doree, Choire, Jess, Elizabeth, Emily, and Josh each have their own sites, but their cross-references and incestuous linking have created a blogger's version of Entourage.

The posse—or as media theoreticians call it, the network—creates influence that grows exponentially with its size. If fame is an investment, the members of your posse are the stockbrokers keeping your wealth properly distributed.